/outline

Outline Wiki Skill

An AI agent skill for searching, reading, and managing documents in Outline wiki instances. Works with Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Cursor, OpenAI Codex, Goose, and other AI clients supporting the Agent Skills Standard.

Features

• Search - Full-text search across all documents and collections
• Read - Retrieve document content by ID
• List - Browse collections and documents
• Create - Create new documents with markdown content
• Update - Modify existing documents
• Export - Export documents as markdown files

Works with both Outline Cloud and self-hosted instances.

Quick Start

1. Install dependencies

cd skills/outline
pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Get your API key

1. Log into your Outline wiki
2. Go to Settings > API Tokens
3. Click Create a token
4. Copy the generated token

3. Configure environment

# Copy example config
cp .env.example .env

# Edit .env with your API key
# OUTLINE_API_KEY=your-api-key-here

Or set environment variables directly:

export OUTLINE_API_KEY=your-api-key-here

# For self-hosted instances:
export OUTLINE_API_URL=https://wiki.yourcompany.com/api

4. Test connection

python3 scripts/outline.py auth-info

Usage Examples

Searching

# Search for documents
python3 scripts/outline.py search "deployment"

# Search within a specific collection
python3 scripts/outline.py search "API" --collection-id abc123

# Limit results
python3 scripts/outline.py search "guide" --limit 5

Reading Documents

# Read a document
python3 scripts/outline.py read doc-uuid-here

# Get JSON output
python3 scripts/outline.py read doc-uuid-here --json

Browsing Collections

# List all collections
python3 scripts/outline.py list-collections

# Get collection details
python3 scripts/outline.py get-collection collection-uuid

# List documents in a collection
python3 scripts/outline.py list-documents --collection-id collection-uuid

Creating Documents

# Create a simple document
python3 scripts/outline.py create \
  --title "My New Document" \
  --collection-id collection-uuid

# Create with content
python3 scripts/outline.py create \
  --title "Setup Guide" \
  --collection-id collection-uuid \
  --text "# Getting Started\n\nWelcome to the guide..."

# Create as draft (unpublished)
python3 scripts/outline.py create \
  --title "Work in Progress" \
  --collection-id collection-uuid \
  --draft

# Create as child of another document
python3 scripts/outline.py create \
  --title "Sub-section" \
  --collection-id collection-uuid \
  --parent-id parent-doc-uuid

Updating Documents

# Update title
python3 scripts/outline.py update doc-uuid --title "New Title"

# Update content
python3 scripts/outline.py update doc-uuid --text "# Updated Content"

# Publish a draft
python3 scripts/outline.py update doc-uuid --publish

# Unpublish
python3 scripts/outline.py update doc-uuid --unpublish

Exporting

# Print markdown to stdout
python3 scripts/outline.py export doc-uuid

# Save to file
python3 scripts/outline.py export doc-uuid --output document.md

JSON Output

All commands support --json flag for machine-readable output:

python3 scripts/outline.py search "api" --json | jq '.documents[].title'
python3 scripts/outline.py list-collections --json | jq '.collections[] | {name, id}'

Configuration

Environment Variables

Self-Hosted Outline

For self-hosted instances, set OUTLINE_API_URL to your instance's API endpoint:

export OUTLINE_API_URL=https://wiki.yourcompany.com/api

Command Reference

Common Options

Troubleshooting

"OUTLINE_API_KEY environment variable is required"

Set your API key:

export OUTLINE_API_KEY=your-api-key

Or create a .env file in the skill directory.

"HTTP 401: Unauthorized"

Your API key is invalid or expired. Generate a new one from Outline settings.

"HTTP 403: Forbidden"

Your API token doesn't have permission for this operation. Create a new token with appropriate scopes.

"Connection timeout"

• Check your OUTLINE_API_URL is correct
• Verify network connectivity to the Outline server
• Try increasing timeout: export OUTLINE_TIMEOUT=60

"Document/Collection not found"

• Verify the ID is correct (UUIDs, not URL slugs)
• Check you have permission to access the resource

API Reference

This skill wraps the Outline API. Key endpoints used:

• POST /auth.info - Authentication check
• POST /documents.search - Full-text search
• POST /documents.info - Get document
• POST /documents.list - List documents
• POST /documents.create - Create document
• POST /documents.update - Update document
• POST /documents.export - Export as markdown
• POST /collections.list - List collections
• POST /collections.info - Get collection

License

Apache 2.0